The Purest Joy of Travel

Hi Readers,

Once again, a bit of time in between posts, but I won't bore you with excuses.

Believe me when I say I hate it when I have some ideas to waffle on about but just don't make the time to do it.

Take note that I chose to say I don't MAKE the time rather than say I don't HAVE the time.

We all have the same amount of time in a day, whether we run the country or teach a Gr 5 class. It's how we use that time that differs.

Obviously my time management could use a kick in the pants!!!

I was watching a doco last night about Michael Palin, the ex-member of Monty Python.

For those quite younger than me you should probably google "Monty Python" to see where I'm coming from.

Basically, he's an English actor and sketch comedy team member.

Since moving on from acting in Monty Python, he has moved on to producing a wide range of travel documentaries that are just fantastic as they differ from the usual ones that look more like an advertisement than a doco.

He does go to many of the mainstream places and tourist destinations, but it is more of the experiences he has there and the more obscure places that he goes to that capture my interest.

In this show last night, it was pretty much a doco about his doco's, in particular one where he attempted to travel around the world in 80 days without using any air travel. He was following the footsteps described in the book "Around the World in 80 Days".

And this is where the title of this post comes from.

"The Purest Joy of Travel"

He explains where he has experienced this on a number of occasions in his travels, and they needn't have been major events or significant occurrences. Sometimes they were just the purest of interactions with a total stranger in the street. Other times it was experiencing nature, or even just losing something and then realising how purile it would have been to fuss about the loss.

Haven't we all experienced things like this? It doesn't mean you have to travel overseas to experience the things that enable you to experience the purest joy of travel. You might have experienced it taking a local holiday, travelling to a nearby town or just walking around the block.

Where I'm coming from is that we are just so absorbed at times in getting somewhere that we miss so many things along the way.

I watched Palin show a worker on a boat (an old dow) how to use a Walkman (remember those?) as he spent 6 days crossing the Persian Gulf. This seems so standard to us, but watching someone experience it for the first time, but in such a caring way was beautiful to watch, and this was one of the experiences that Palin referred to as pure joy.

When they said their farewells a few days later you could tell how much of a connection had been made between these two men from totally different environments.

I just checked and the name of the program is "Michael Palin, Travels of a Lifetime" and you can catch it on SBS On Demand.

Well worth it !!

After watching him experience little moments of pure joy, that ended up being the more significant parts of his trips, it got me wondering.

Back in about 2014 Jen and I were sitting at home one lazy Sunday afternoon and we saw something on TV about an overseas destination. One of us said something like "We should do an overseas trip" and a few hours later we were a few thousand dollars lighter and had a trip booked to Europe, our first overseas trip together.

What struck us the most on this trip was that we noticed so many people not much older than us struggling to get around in many of the places we visited. We then decided that would not be us, and instead of waiting until retirement to do our travels we spent the next ten years doing a number of trips overseas together and alone while we could, spending the boy's inheritance!!!

How lucky were we that we did this, because losing Jen back in June this year meant that if we had waited until retirement it would never have happened at all. I'm just so thankful that she got to do so much before she was unable to, and looking back now it is the simple things on our trips that still tend to have left us with the greatest memories.

If, and when I travel again, I know that she will still be with me experiencing it just as much as I will be.

Pure joys of travel memories.

Let me share one.

We were on a train in Italy somewhere, and we could never remember where we were going, but we always remember what happened on the train that day.

We shared a little cabin with another couple roughly our age, or slightly younger. We gradually got talking and we discovered that they were from Israel and were on a similar trip to us. It was just wonderful to share travel tips about where we'd been and where we were going. They also had 3 sons, and to share tales about what it was like raising 3 sons in different parts of the world was such a memorable experience. 

Their tales about hearing rockets being fired into their neighbourhood absolutely chilled us, but to them it was just a part of life to accept. Similarly, they were shocked to hear about how common it was to experience poisonous things like snakes and spiders, and that kangaroos were viewed more as a pest at times rather than a tourist attraction!

We just talked for hours about everyday life, but while there was so much in common, there was also so much that we found hard to comprehend and accept.

We learnt more from them in a few hours than what we could ever hope to experience in days and days of travel.

And speaking of trains, it was always a contest between the two of us to get a photo of the other asleep on a train. I still have no idea where this came from, but whenever I'd be just about to catch a snap of Jen asleep, she would magically wake up the moment I'd try to get the photo. Needless to say, she got heaps of me !!

This is just another example of the things we remember from our trips. For sure we remember the famous landmarks, but it was the things we did more than the things we saw that really stuck with us.

Just about my only 'sleeping photo'

And just as quickly as I took it, she wakes up!!

I can't even remember where this photo was taken, but I remember the moment. Another time on our travels that we always recalled with joy.

And some more random snaps that don't show a famous place, but to us they always brought back the memories we spoke the most about.

Meeting our son and his now partner in Venice, the first time we met Phoebe. 

A simple bike ride around the city of Lucca in Italy. We got sooooo lost !!!

I touched the waters of the Atlantic Ocean in Portugal, something I always do when I'm in a new country.

Speaking of Portugal, eating a REAL Portugese tart in Lisbon. Then another, and another...you get the picture.

A simple cuppa in Barcelona watching the world go by.

 

We always walk the streets mindlessly, just loving where we are and never forgetting how lucky we have been to do it.

Just sitting at a train station, watching the locals and feeling like one of them.

Well readers, as you can see, we have gathered hundreds of photos on all of our trips, but more importantly, so many more memories. As I look at each of these photos, and even more that I didn't include, so many joyful memories keep flooding back, and to me, that is the pure joy of travel.

I've often taken photos as I've travelled around Bendigo and its surrounds, as this is where I grew up, and these photos only remind me more of how lucky I have been to have grown up where I did.

This post has nothing about some of my inner thoughts about what has occurred this year, so that's probably a relief to all of you who take the time to read my ramblings. 

Are you aware of how much of your day you have just neglected by reading this far ????

All I ask is that you just take a few moments as you drive to work, or have a shower or as you cook dinner to reflect on the things about your travels in life that bring you the greatest joy.

Hopefully you'll find yourself with a little smile at the end! ☺️

The purest joy of travel.

Until my next post,

Cheers 😁

 Turn Your Magic On

Hi Readers,

Thought I'd better try and get at least one more post out before the holidays end and it's back to work. It wasn't lost on me how my posting really dropped off over the past 10 weeks after going back to work after nearly 12 months away.

After a few weeks of pretty dismal weather, the past 2-3 days have been glorious here and it's not hard to walk with a spring in one's step. Even with a bung ankle!!

While out doing a bit of gardening over these past few days while I can, I had my obligatory music playing in the background. A particular song came on at just the right time, "Adventures of A Lifetime", by Coldplay.

This is an absolute favourite of mine, especially since it was used so expertly in a TV series that I watched last year called "Long Way Up".

This is the 3rd in a series by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman who ride their motorbikes from the southernmost tip of South America to Los Angeles. As they near the end of their epic trip, this song is played in the background and sums up so much of what they did and what they discovered about themselves by doing the trip.

As a very devoted motorbike rider myself, I found that this song resonates so much with me not just when I'm on the bike, but also when I am doing things that I feel are adding value to my life, and hopefully to others as well.

In a nutshell, the song is all about having good feelings, and being able to give them. 

While the weather was so beautiful, it was hard not to be experiencing good feelings after the dismal weather of late. I had to go out and get a few jobs done late in the afternoon, and the upbeat feelings I was having due to the weather and the song still playing in my head meant that it was going to take a lot to get on my nerves.

Things that would usually bug me and annoy me became so trivial, and I was almost laughing at myself for letting them annoy me in the first place. Did it really matter that a car cut me off when changing lanes? Did it really matter that a group of people in front of me in the shops were walking so slowly together and completely blocking the lane? Did it really matter that the one main thing I went down to the supermarket to get was the one thing that I actually forgot?

When I let these things annoy me, they put me in a frame of mind that isn't great to be honest.

And when I'm in such a negative frame of mind, how does this then affect others, or the way that I deal with them? I'm sure i'd be a pain in the bum to everyone!

Turn your magic on, to me she'd say

Everything you want's a dream away

Under this pressure, under this weight

We are diamonds

We all have the ability to be influential, and that can be in a negative or positive way. The song talks about "turning your magic on" and to me it is telling us to do whatever we can that will be best for ourselves and others. It needn't mean trying to save the world, but sometimes just being the best version of yourself is enough. I know some of you might be thinking that it all sounds like a cliche, or that maybe I've been having a puff of something hallucinogenic, but the reality is that it isn't impossible to just make some small changes to how we approach things.

Maybe a challenge for each of us tomorrow at work could be something as simple as rather than complaining about something, comment on a positive instead? Who knows what a difference that could make on someone else?

Plus, research shows that doing good things and saying good things releases chemicals in the brain that make us feel good as a result.

For all we know, we may even be the person who drags others down, so any change for the better is always going to be beneficial for everyone. Make it infectious !!

As the lyrics suggest, everything is just a dream away, and not out of our reach. It can feel like we are under pressure at times, but pressure produces diamonds, and wouldn't we all like to be able to shine like a diamond, in a manner of speaking.

Now I feel my heart beating

I feel my heart beneath my skin

I feel my heart beating

Oh, you make me feel

Like I'm alive again

Hearing this song when I did made me feel so "alive again", I just felt so refreshed and invigorated to get out and do things, and not be bothered by the stupid little things that I previously would let bother me. You're probably thinking that I have been out in this glorious sun for too long this weekend, and that perhaps I wouldn't be writing this if it was a bleak day. You're probably right, but I'll take any little win at the moment.

The day has been made even more delightful as I wandered around the yard looking for other things that needed doing. Previously, Jen would have all the garden under control and I'd just provide the hard labor where required. Now I have to try and be the gardener, something which I have never really had an interest in or expertise with.

How that has changed now !!

Just by walking around a few moments ago I began to realise little things that I would rarely have ever noticed. The garden is rapidly becoming alive again after winter, and the splashes of colour are really starting.

Pretty soon this will become a wall of roses, something that looks beautiful each year. Already a few are starting to bloom, I'll need to keep a daily check on the rest as I don't want to miss it. Can you find the first one blooming there?

The Camellia tree that was given to me by Jen's closest friends. It bloomed a few weeks ago with two amazing flowers, but nothing since. A close check shows that there are many buds ready to explode. With her birthday in a few weeks I'm hoping that it will be in full bloom for her.

It's finally warm enough to start home brewing again, so I thought I'd better get a few barrels done before I'm out of action in a few weeks and won't be able to do much then.

A bit of a prune for the Bird of Paradise plants near the pond has them starting to come out again.

I still can't see them properly after one of our boys showed me this picture below. !!!

And I was even able to put a bit of shine on the bike and get out for a short ride. A recent shoulder injury has kept me off it, but I now have enough movement to get about again !!

Well readers,

Not much to really fang on about today, because it just sounds too simple to put into words.

Turn your magic on !!

We all have lots of little quirks, skills, mannerisms etc that may seem senseless to us, but in the big picture they can be the difference between having an okay day, or a great day. How we choose to use them, or when to use them is up to us.

Now to get back outside and make the most of this glorious day...

Until my next post,

Cheers ! 😁